Monday, August 23, 2021

Afghanistan - A Fool's Errand Comes to an End

 by Joe Siano



Four years ago, Scott Horton of Antiwar.com published Fool’s Errand, a scathing and meticulously documented indictment of America’s tragic misadventure in Afghanistan.

Following 911, the United States learned that the attack’s mastermind, Osama Bin Laden, was hiding in Afghanistan.  Bin Laden was a non-state actor, responsible for nearly 3,000 deaths and almost twice as many injured in the events of that day.


Representative Ron Paul proposed a limited response to this aggression by
introducing a bill of Marque and Reprisal in the House of Representatives on October 10, 2001.  Letters of Marque and Reprisal are the Constitutionally prescribed remedy to address acts of individuals, living beyond our borders, who perpetrate acts of violence on the U.S. or its citizens.

This approach did not suit the tastes of Vice President Dick Cheney and his band of warmongers.  They pushed President and George W. Bush to demand that Afghan authorities hand Bin Laden over to the U.S. or suffer the consequence of a full-scale invasion and occupation of their country. 



This was a cynical and disingenuous request made for propaganda purposes only.  Cheney’s crew knew that it was impermissible under Islamic law and custom for the Afghan government to surrender a brother Moslem to infidels (non-Moslems).  Thus, they fabricated a rationale for a  second war in the Middle East alongside the foray in Iraq.

Horton recounts how the Afghan government wanted no parts of Bin Laden in their country. They made multiple offers to turn him over to the Americans discretely, thus sidestepping religious scandal.  America’s Neo-conservative foreign policy establishment ignored these overtures so as to continue its mission of nation-building to transform this ancient culture into a Western-style liberal democracy.

If the capture or assassination of Bin Laden was America’s true goal, our mission in Afghanistan should have ended in May 2011 when he was killed by Navy Seals.  Yet the war continued for another ten years until the recent announcement of U.S. withdrawal earlier this month and the immediate collapse of the Afghan government.

Despite his death, Bin Laden won.  Once again Horton describes the brilliant rope-a-dope that Bin Laden


drew us into.  Afghanistan is the "graveyard of empires".   The Soviets wasted ten tragic years warring in Afghanistan ultimately fleeing with their tails between their legs.  Many contend that this costly war contributed heavily to
the collapse of the Soviet Union

Bin Laden correctly foresaw that the United States would sink into the same quagmire as our Russian rivals upon commencement of hostilities in said country.  Being a much wealthier and more powerful nation than the U.S.S.R., The United States was able to spend twice the time banging its head against the wall before our humiliating exit.  Ironically, the same Taliban that just KOed the U.S. is the same Taliban that we helped to organize, arm and finance during their war with the Soviets.  Back then they were the good guys.  We called them freedom fighters.

What motivated the United States to enter, stay and sacrifice so much in this “fool’s errand”.  Was it simply quixotic idealism? Or stupidity? Or greed? 

On the heels of the recent and swift collapse of the Afghan government, the Inspector General’s office issued a report, What We Need To Learn: Lessons From Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction.  According to The Federalist this report, “found that many of the failures had to do with a complete lack of understanding in regards to Afghan culture and the ‘social landscapes’ of the region”.

Per the report: “Rarely did U.S. officials have even a mediocre understanding of the environment, much less how it was responding to U.S. interventions.”  “U.S. programs empowered malign actors and exacerbated preexisting inequities, undermining the legitimacy of the Afghan government they were intended to bolster”.

Again, per the Federalist story: “Ambassador Ryan Crocker affirmed this, telling SIGAR, ‘The ultimate point of failure for our efforts wasn’t an insurgency. It was the weight of endemic corruption.’”

Down to the bitter end, it appears that America’s leadership class had no clue.  General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confessed surprise admitting that the collapse “did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.”

Stupidity, incompetence and naivety played a big part in this disaster.  

These are the people we depend upon to protect us from all enemies, foreign and domestic” .  Think about that.

Greed coupled with gullibility are even more prominent factors.

Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, pointed out years ago that the goal in Afghanistan "is to have an endless war not a successful war," in order to "wash money out of the tax bases of the United States...into the hands of the transnational security elite."


Dwight Eisenhower, America’s last war-hero President warned in his farewell address of
the corrupting power of the military-industrial complex.

“Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

A Newsweek Op-ed declares that the, “Taliban Didn't Win in Afghanistan, the Defense Contractors Did”.  This piece references the aforementioned Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction report to document massive financial investment of $145 billion – largely to civilian contractors  - to rebuild Afghanistan as well as $837 billion to actually fight the war.  The outcome:

·        1,114 allied troops dead

·        20,666 of America’s finest young men and women injured

·        At least 66,000 Afghan troops killed

·        48,000 Afghan civilians killed and another 75,000 injured

·        Untold billions of dollars in U.S. arms and military equipment left in the hands of our enemy

Following World War I, a war of unprecedented bloodshed and misery,  H. C. Englebrecht and F.C. Hannigan, published Merchants of Death, their groundbreaking expose of the International armament industry.  The Mises Institute points out that this study “was co-authored by the founder of Human Events, the conservative weekly. So this is no left-wing screed against profiteering. It is a careful and subtle, but still passionate, attack on those who would use government to profit themselves at the expense of other people's lives and property.”

The synopsis continues,” This book is a wonderful example of what Rothbard called the ‘Old Right’ in its best form. The book not only makes the case against the war machine; it provides a scintillating history of war profiteering, one authoritative enough for citation and academic study. One can see how this book had such a powerful effect.”

And what role does naivety play in all of this?  Americans are good-hearted people who, for the most part, want to make the world a better place.  They trust their leaders to be just and moral actors, doing what they believe to be for the greater good of America in particular and humanity in general.  This is their fatal blind spot,

The democratic model that we have tried to graft onto Afghanistan, Iraq and Viet Nam does not typically produce those types of leaders.

Hans Herman Hoppe demonstrates that in mass democracies, demagogues rise to the top of the political pyramid.  When selecting candidates for high office, the kingmakers of both American political parties ask themselves: “Who is the smartest bad guy?  Who has the most demagogic talent?  Who is a magnificent briber, liar, cheater and all the rest of it.”  He concludes: “Under democratic conditions, especially on the central level, it is almost impossible that a decent person will ever be elected to a higher rank.”
(PDF p 145)

It's one thing when corrupt local politicians swindle money and award bogus no-bid contracts to friends.  It is quite another when supposed statesmen  prevail upon the good-will of the people to enrich the death merchants while killing and maiming thousands.

This is murder plain and simple.  For this, they should be called to account.

During the heady Tea Party uprising of 2010 and 2011, many Partiers told me that they liked Ron Paul’s domestic agenda but objected to his foreign policy.  Too bad.  If America had gotten on board with his gospel of non-interventionism and moderation in response to offenses, think about how many lives would be saved, pain and injuries averted, and money saved to invest in productive uses.  America and the entire world would be safer, healthier and more prosperous


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